Summer is fun. It's like hot as hell and then, out of nowhere, you just hear that it's raining somewhere not that far and... it's coming to youuuu!

Well, as scary as it looks, it lasted less than 5min... but it was more than enough to cool down at least a bit. So I took the time to run to the gym (run meaning taking the elevator downstairs lol) and get my upper body training on check :)

So I had the whooooole gym for myself... I mean, who else would be at the gym at like 2pm, specially a home gym? d: I did a light 1.55mi to warm up and then 1:30min of weight training.

After that, I cooked some pasta with shrimp and soy sauce that didn't turn out as good as I planned, but I was so starving to death that I eat it happily ever after lol. Then I was supposed to go over my cousin's for a nice sleep over but my friend came over... as I was showing him some runner's blogs, I found out about a 10K race at beginning of April in Buenos Aires... MAN I got the chills! I mean, I really want to run my first race ever, but is it ok for your first one to be a 10K? I mean, I've been running for more than a year now, but I don't know, I'm just so nervous!! So I just signed up anyways. What the heck, right? What's the worst that could happen? (me getting at the finishing line and there's no one there anymore... LOL; but at least I got there haha). This is the race:

So my friend was like "oh man, I want to workout, but you already did, right?" And I was like "dude, I've just signed up for my first race, working out once a day ain't a option, let's goooo!" So we did! And I did some sprint training for the first time in ages and felt sooo great about myself! I think I'm starting to build up some confidence on my training... I'm so hard on myself sometimes and I think I don't give myself enough credit for all the hard work I do ):

Now I'm chilling at home with my sista, my lil cousin and my friend (who, by the way, brought us a box of chocolate he got at the South of Brazil - veeeeery famous and yummyyy!)

Since it's not dark chocolate (my favorite), I find it extremely hard to eat conventional chocolate... it's just so damn sweet that I can't never finish a little one ):  So I pour myself some mate, a conventional tea from Argentina, and that cut the extra sweet of the chocolate and it was an awesome combination after all :)

Time to enjoy the night, the heat, the company, the food and the nice mood after my first signed up for a marathon (I know, I'm so dramatic haha). 

----------------------------------------------------------------

Which season you guys like the most? Why?


Well... as a brazilian native, I can't help it but looove summer! I love the heat, sunshine, beaches, outdoor activities, running outside, summer rain, getting together with your friends at the park, bars with tables on the sidewalk, how people seem always much happier during summer *-* 


Do you guys do weight training as well? How do you spread it during the week?


I do one day of upper body training and another day of lower body training. I rather do it that way, 'cause after my lower body training, I can barely walk for 2 days haha. Don't you just love the soreness you feel after you kicked your own butt at the gym? :) I know I do!


How do you guys feel when you had just signed up for your first marathon? Any advices?


Do you have any favorite chocolate kind or brand?


I LOVE dark chocolate... and if it's organic, even better... I used to LOVE this one that was made at the Amazon forest and it was called Kallari... it was sweetened with evaporated cane juice. I used to buy it at Whole Foods and I could never find it outside the US ): 


What are you favorite sweet/sour combination?


Mine is anything sweet with mate <33 

Brazil - NY - Buenos Aires.

Enjoying summer vacation in Brazil pays off...

                    Punau beach, Natal - RN, Brazil  JAN 2011 :)

So let's get back on track here... :)   I'm so inspired those days with my workout... My mind is really good at tricking me, like I want to sabotage myself or something like that. But it's good that it turns out that it lasts only a couple days and then I go right back on track. 

A little bit of story then. When I turned 17, I started living alone with my sister (she was 12 back then), so I guess that always gave me a strong will to do things on my own, you know? So, in 2005, I turned 18 and started Journalism at college. I've always like writing and reading and all that, but I've never quite liked the news... I was a little lost with what to do or what to study... I knew I liked philosophy, poetry, cinema, literature, art... so I think I was thinking about mixing all that together and working in a magazine like those really cool ones about culture in general. I studied for 3 years in Brazil (my homeland d:) and then I moved to NY for an inter exchange program on December 2007... I wanted to learn english, have new experiences, meet new people... my city was kinda sucking the life out of me... Lots of "Skins" kinda life - if you know what I mean - and that was BAD. 

Well, it turned out that I was supposed to stay only for 1 year, but I left the program and started living on my own... I went through a lot trying to make a living and all that jazz, got extremely depressed on winter of 2008 (well, winters...). I was living out of Red Bull and Hershey's bar basically, which just got me more and more depressed... I had like crazy mood swings and my health was just miserably bad... I had never done any type of exercise whatsoever and the thought of it didn't even crossed my mind. I guess I've procrastinated it so bad because I was never fat or even overweighted. Actually, I've always been pretty skinny, like those really skinny that get picked on at school and I've always kinda had a trauma with that... but I didn't like my body either, despite the fact that I was skinny I used to see myself in a different way... One day I was "too skinny", next day I would see fat all over me (I still have a little bit of that, but I guess you couldn't even compare to what it used to be...). 

One day, then, I woke up and decided to change. Just like that. Out of nowhere. Joined the gym. God, was that painful... I've spend about 2 or 3 months dragging my ass there like I was going to hell every single day... I was just doing it all wrong! My eating habits were still really poor and the exercises weren't paying off and I couldn't make myself like them either. So I met this spinning instructor at the gym and we became best friends... she was so amazing and she really inspired me in so many ways that I can't even start describing it... So I started going to the library every week, getting tons of Nutritional books, Medical books, researching on the internet... I quit smoking, quit refine sugar, Whole Foods became my personal church... For the first time in my life I was feeling like I was doing something for MYSELF only, I was liking myself, rewarding myself for doing so many goods for me *-*   

                My favorite spinning instructor, true inspiration <3

Finally, I took my spinning instructor test, started working together with my best friend as spinning instructor... but I just wasn't feeling complete quite yet. The more I studied, the more I wanted to know more about the human body, about how things work in details... I was tired of reading websites that used to contradict each other in all possible ways... So I was like "ok, I think I might have to go to Medical school then". And so, just like that, I decided. And I was already 22 years old... but that didn't scared me... at all. I wanted it so bad and I was so sure that I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. I didn't know what part of Medicine I wanted, but I knew I wanted to study it, to spend hours on books learning about the amazing machine the gets me through the day... 

But it was just so expensive to study Medicine back in the US. I didn't want to study in Brazil either. I wanted to challenge myself more. My mom suggested that I should try going to Argentina. Well, you could see the problems right there: First, I didn't even know how to say "hi" in spanish (well, it's not that I knew how to speak english at all when I moved to the US either... but I've learned, right?). Second, it was ANOTHER country, another starting over, another leaving friends behind, living a life that I had built in the US and that I got so used to. I was scared like hell. But I just sucked it up. :)

[ to be continued... ].

Ch-ch-ch-ch-chaaangeeeeees!

Well, it happened that I stayed this week 3 days in a row without exercising. Not because I didn't have the time (I'm on vacation), not because I didn't have where to train or run (I have a gym at my building), not because of the weather (it's summer here!)... so why then? That's the first time that something like that has happened to me since, well, I can't even remember since when. So that got me thinking about how did that affect me. And I noticed that, on those 3 days, I was extremely tired all the time, moody, irritable. It's like I was feeling guilty that I haven't trained and was punishing myself for it by sabotaging my own training. Weird, hun? So I got this really helpful book "MIND GYM - AN ATHLETE'S GUIDE TO INNER EXCELLENCE" and started reading it. Some quotes that have inspired me so far:

"You get what your mind sets. The mind works most effectively when you're telling it what to do rather than what not to do."


"Learn to use your mind or your mind will use you. Actions follow our thoughts and images. Don't look where you don't want to go."


"You can't control your performance until you are in control of yourself. What you're thinking. How you're feeling. Most importantly, your physiology. Know your numbers and your early warning signs."


"In sports, as in life, your future and success depend upon many things, but mostly they depend upon you. You have the responsibility to shape your life. You are the person who pushes yourself forward or holds yourself back. The power to succeed or fail is yours alone."


"While you can't always control what happens, you always can control how you respond to it. IT's not the situation but how you respond to it that makes the difference."


"In sports, as in life, the first step to success is getting out of your own way."


"Goals must be high enough to excite you, yet not so high that you cannot vividly imagine them. Goals must be attainable, but just out of reach for now."



Yesterday, I went for a ride. Only 30min ride, nothing too much, just to get me going. And, when I came back, I was feeling so much better, so much calmer... then I started looking into some running things, some nutritional stuff and I ended up finding a bunch of runners blogs, got really carried aways with all the amazing stories I was reading and I realized that I also had a blog which I barely use unless is to quote something I've heard somewhere. But wait, maybe I might have something myself to say as well, hun? So here I am, reviving this blog and hoping that I can finally get the balls to sign up for my first marathon ever. Can't. Wait.

As the posts go, I'll start telling more about my whole story. It's rather interesting for a 24 years old girl who's living on the 3rd country for the past 4 years. How all that changed and affected me never cease to amaze me.

Love And Other Drugs.

- I've never known anyone who actually believed I was enough until I met you. And then you made me believe it too. So ahm... unfortunatelly... I need you. And you need me.

- No, I don't.

- Yes, you do.

- No, I don't.

- Yes, you do.

- Stop! Just stop saying that...

- You need someone to take care of you.

- No, I don't.

- Everybody does.

- I'm gonna need you more than you need me...

- That's ok...

- No! It's not! It isn't fair! I have places to go, I... 

- You'll go there... I just may have to carry you...

- I can't ask you to do that...

- You didn't.

Ran out of "past polish"?

Who knew that people could actually improve their old ways of disappoint me.

I Am The Messenger, Markus Zusak.

- Believe it or not - it takes a lot of love to hate you like this.

Limit for loving.

If you had only 5 relationships in life that you could say "I love you"... wouldn't the meaning of this 'so-wrongly-used-expression' be much deeper? Would you use them all up while you could, or would you save them for the real "ones"? What if you died before ever saying it? What if you've wasted them all just to realize that the relationships weren't worth it? How you would meet then your soul mate without saying that you love him? Can an unsaid "I love you" determine the course of your love life?

Hello, stranger.

The less I know you and the less I care about you, the easier is for me to say everything that's on my mind.

So many great things to do with a human mouth,

why waste it on talking?


[ HIMYM ]

Insecurity disgusts me.

And if I could've said much more with silence,

 silence says it all.

Postmodernism dictionary.

Commitment: living the same life you were used to before you chose to commit to what you are committed to.

Example: I'm committed to it, but oh well, I have more important things to do so, whatever.

Missing: something you need to ask for.

Example: Hey, do you miss me yet or you need a couple more days to do so?

Love: A 4 letter word commonly used for text.

Example: I love u :)  [SEND]

Consideration: letting your loved ones be the last ones to know what's up on your life - when you actually let them know.  

Example: Hey I was at a huge club yesterday, got so drunk, crazy night... I'm kinda bored and free today, wanna hang? 

It breaks when you don't force it, It breaks when you don't try.

"Inactivity and starvation in mammals lead to atrophy of skeletal muscle, accompanied by a smaller number and size of the muscle cells as well as lower protein content. In humans, prolonged periods of immobilization are known to result in muscle weakening and atrophy.

Bears are an exception to this rule. During hibernation, bears spend four to seven months of inactivity and anorexia without undergoing muscle atrophy and protein loss.

Athletes not only warm up to physically prepare their bodies for training or competition but also to mentally warm themselves up. Warm ups are a crucial part of performance. If completed correctly, they enable the body to perform at its peak performing ability at the current time. A warm up should be specific to the task required to perform in order to activate the correct energy systems and prepare the correct muscles."

1) The heart is also a muscle. 

2) I'm not a bear. 

3) "Just 'cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there."

"T.M.I"

                                        

"Too Many Invited."

What are you working for?

Trabajo es el producto de una Fuerza por el desplazamiento que esa causa por el ángulo entre la Fuerza y en desplazamiento causado. Mismo que haya una Fuerza, si ella no produjo movimiento, d = 0; W = 0 Joule ---> NO hube trabajo. Dale? 

 

[ http://3olivemartini.tumblr.com/post/1212763497/old-school-facebook ]

"i think i should start punching women im interested in."

you know, ive noticed alot of women i know are doing stupid things with themselves. well, not stupid things, its actually legitimate RETARD SHIT. i mean why put up with the things you put up with? why are you in a relationship if you constantly complain about him? why put the bad boys up first and throw the gentlemen on the back burner for you to run to when things go south? hell even that wouldnt be a problem but what happens when we fix your problems??? then you run back to the asshole because you “love him.” GET REAL. the problem with you women today is your attracted to the people who have the capacity to hurt you the most. you mistake kindness for weakness, and any sort of compassion as feminine and friendly. if we throw rocks at your window you think of it as sweet and funny but wont pay it any mind, then homie throws a brick at your head and you fall in love. SERIOUSLY? what goes on in your head??? why the fuck are you with a man who verbally and physically abuses you? why are you with a man who doesnt even cover his tracks when hes cheating on you with your friends? WHY ARE YOU WITH A MAN WHO REFUSES TO GIVE YOU HIS ALL, WHEN YOUR “BESTIE” HAS LEGITIMATELY GIVEN YOU MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE POSSIBLY COULD? it honestly makes no sense. im so puzzled by this concept, ive actually openly asked for girls opinions on this. then they tell me oh your exaggerating bla bla bla etc etc. then i ask em wheres your boyfriend? most dont even know, then they call… no reply. they text… no answer. wanna know why? because the ratio of women to men in the united states is at least 3:1. its a fact, check out the census report. this means that if YOUR not currently fucking your man, theres a 50% chance that hes fucking the other 2/3rds of his little ratio. AND YOU LET IT ROCK. YOU TAKE THESE PIGS BACK BECAUSE YOU FEEL THE NEED TO FIX THEM. but in all honesty, men dont change. they are the way the are FOREVER. so ladies, please take this into consideration: if your boyfriend isnt giving you all you deserve, drop him like a rock. hes not worth your time or effort. second, if you have a single, straight, male “bestie”, chances are hes been deeply in love with you for a long time, and hes actually hurting to see you in a bad relationship. give him a chance, it might change your outlook on men. its not true that there are no more good men left, its just you have overlooked him, even though he’s been parading his interest in you for a loooooooong time.

if you read through this thinking “i hope this nigga aint talkin about me” then i probably am. this isnt about any 1 person i know in particular, but a culmination of quite a few of you. so if you read this feelin guilty, well then it must be about you. it is what it is.

and one more thing, im done waiting around for you to come to your senses. it honestly bothers me to the point of madness why you put up with him when most of the time hes putting a frown on your face, when all ive ever done is put a smile on it. Ciao, bella.

[ http://3olivemartini.tumblr.com/post/1209207539/i-think-i-should-start-punching-women-im-interested-in ]

Missing pieces.

Hey, dad... It's almost your birthday... Can I come over now? I just need to lay down on your chest  and listen to your heartbeat... just... one more time. Hey, dad... there's still a little bit of your eyes I need to see... there's still a little bit of your arms I need to feel around me... please, I promise it won't take long. Just this time, let me be with you... Hey, dad... I know I'm crying right now, but I promise I won't cry in front of you as long as you don't ask me how I have been. Hey, dad... I know seeing you is a one-way road and I know that's why you don't want me to come, right? What If I say I would come anyway?

Love you, daddy. Much more than anything that this word can mean.

And happy birthday. 

Hey you, threw it all away by holding everything in;

"Stop looking to others to give you permission to go after the target you want to knock down. You are your own master. Set the target up, then knock it down. It really is that simple once you stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Stop waiting until you can move perfectly. Stop saying you’d do it if only you had a sharper weapon. Stop waiting for the ideal situation. There is no such thing."

[ Unleash the Warrior Within ]

Is he dark enough to see your light?

"He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking." 


— Leo Tolstoy [ Anna Karenina ]






This is real love. And then we have the rest.

Prince, boyfriends, wars and relationships.

What Maquiavel wrote:

"El que se hace señor de una ciudad acostumbrada a vivir libre, y no descompone su régimen, debe contar con ser derrocado él mismo por ella. Para justificar semejante ciudad su rebelión, tendrá el nombre de libertad, y sus antiguas leyes, cuyo hábito no podrán hacerle perder nunca el tiempo ni los beneficios del conquistador. Por más que se haga, y aunque se practique algún expediente de previsión, si no se desunen y dispersan sus habitantes, no olvidará ella nunca aquel nombre de libertad ni sus particulares estatutos (...)".

What I understood:

"If you become a girlfriend of a guy who's used to have too much freedom, and don't do anything to change it, you can count to be left out by the same freedom. To explain his attitude, this kind of guy will always use the freedom his used to have and his old ways of living, which is a behavior time can't make him lose not even the girlfriend's attributes. It doesn't matter what the girl does, and even if she tries to predict it, if  she does't detach him from his group, he will never forget that freedom nor its particulars ways (...)". 

My brain makes party out of the art of war. Deal with it. 

Talks that should have happened.

- Hey, I just came really quick, don't have much time, but I've missed you, so I stopped by to say hi.
- Aww, how sweet! I've missed you too...
- I'm about to eat lunch, make me company?
- Sure. :D

Love is right there. Just pick it up and give it to me.

"If you want more love, why don't you say so?"

Dear John Mayer,
well, I won't because I think there are many things in life we shouldn't have to ask for. And to be loved in a relationship should be one of them. If a guy can't realize you need more love, than I shouldn't be the one saying it either. I would want him to love me more because he feels it, not because I asked him for. Otherwise, how am I ever gonna know if that "more love" comes genuinely from him or it's just something he's doing because I've asked him to do so?

Go ask Alice, I think she'll know.

Life's about choices. That's exactly what is all about. If you take the blue pill, you've automatic rejected the red pill. Choosing is about excluding. If you could be with someone, but you're not, you just didn't choose to be with someone else. You also chose not to be with the first someone. So, every time you have to choose to do something, think about what you're losing with your choice. Because choices are about what you lose by making them, not what you've got with what you've chosen.


[ One pill makes you larger; one pill makes you small ]. 

Mayerisms.

I wish that when I was younger I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship.

You can listen to all the sage wisdom you want, but things only make sense when you can explain them to yourself in your own words. For instance, I’ve been told for three years that Breaking Bad is the best show on television, but only after I watched it was I able to tell myself exactly why everyone was right. Other truths I know now that I can explain them: that I’m not missing any crucial information and that poker really isn’t all that fun; that heartbreaks do fade but they take about a year longer than you expect and by the time they do you really don’t care about it enough to notice; and above all else, life is simpler than you think.

I used to think that life was an intricate series of levers and pulleys, buttons and switches, Mexican standoffs and hostage negotiations. As I get older I realize that life is more Netherlands minimalist than Jackson Pollock. The problems don’t get fewer, and in fact they grow in number, but the way I index them in the database is different. More problems get filed under fewer category headers.

Things are getting simpler, and it’s making life better. Here’s the cheat sheet:
People want to be liked. We all crave attention and affection and we all reject shame. When we get embarrassed we send a thug version of ourselves to the forefront to do our fighting for us. We’re at the top of the food chain just under fear.  We don’t want to be in a relationship to hear the words “I love you,” we want to be in a relationship to say the words “I love you.” We want to feel needed, and exceptional and we hate feeling insignificant. We want to ace a hearing test. We are binary creatures; if we’re the plaintiff, we want to win every dollar. If we’re the defendant, we want guard every penny. We want to make more money than last year. We don’t want to get cancer or die in our cars and we want the same for our loved ones. We go out on weekends to try and have sex while trying not to get punched in the face. We drink so we can be ourselves and not mind it so much. We’re desperate to be understood. We want to know someone else has felt it, too. We hate being judged unfairly. We want to make the person we heard wasn’t all that into us change their minds and admit they had us wrong. We want sunny skies with a chance of killer tornadoes, just to keep music sounding good. We take hours upon hours to admit to self consciousness. We don’t know exactly how to pleasure each other. We just want love. In any and every form.

See? It’s simple. :)

[ by John Mayer ]

5 Centimeters Per Second.

"I think of how the person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member." 

.Douglas Coupland [ Shampoo Planet ]

Alone in Love.

Raison d'être.

There was once a boy named Pierre, who only would say "I don't care".


[ And who actually cared enough to constantly prove that he didn't. ]

"Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled."

"If a chemical system at equilibrium experiences an external disturbance, then the equilibrium shifts to counteract the imposed change and a new equilibrium is established."  [ Le Châtelier's principle ]




You ain't no exception.

How to treasure something without the desire of keeping it?

... I felt like I somewhat came to understand why Tohno-kun was different from the other boys. And, at the same time, I cleary realized that Tohno-kun wasn't really looking at me. Which is why, on that day, I couldn't say a word to Tohno-kun. Tohno-kun is really kind, but... he's so truly kind, but... but Tohno-kun was always looking far beyond me. Far beyond me, towards something in the distance. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to give Tohno-kun what he truly desires. But still... despite that... tomorrow, the day after, and even beyond that... I know I'll still be helplessly in love with him. While thinking solely of Tohno-kun, I cried myself to sleep.  [ 5 Centimeters Per Second ]

"The poet is a faker

 Who's so good at his act

 He even fakes the pain 

 Of pain he feels in fact."   [ Fernando Pessoa]

Why is that that the most amazing thoughts come out of the saddest moments? They just jump out of my infra-ego, carrying enough soul with them to give me goosebumps, slip through my fingers straight to the paper, begging to be transposed into phrases, paragraphs, stories. And, after all this process passes and I go back to read all those sentences predicated with saddness, I wonder how much pain I was carrying to actually be able to feel that. Because the me who reads those broken words is not the same me who wrote them. My own hurtful conjugated verbs and tearful adjectives from yesterday don't mean anything to me anymore as I read them right now. 

Do you want more, or do you want less?

I want less... but for longer.  [ words of wisdom by John Mayer ].

C'mon world...

You're walking in the wrong direction!

.

Shrink.

My head has a life of its own. I was inside the bus today daydreaming when I saw a street that look exactly like one that ends up in the Central Park. I've actually jumped out of my seat and got off the bus. And then I stood there, staring at this fake piece of reality; and it took me 5 minutes to realize where I was and what had just happened. Pouring tears.

Ok, this might be way too stupid.

So, it's almost 3:30am. I had actually turned off the computer and was laying down in bed for like about 30min now. And I had already turned the computer off, but I had to come back to write this down 'cause I would definitely forget about it in a few minutes.
I'm impressed by my ability of making up things on my head. I mean, I actually make up this whole drama with someone. And I had discussions with the person. And I solve them. And we make up. And we get closer. And, despite the fact that it's all INSIDE my head, I actually act with the person, later on, like all that was actually true and that the person actually knows like a little bit more of me, you know? Like we have now a deeper connection. And the stupid thing is that the other person has no freaking idea (obviously!) of what's going on in my head and, of course, their treatment towards me will just be the same. And then, again, I get frustrated and disappointed 'cause I feel more connected to someone that the other way around. And it's been like that for as long as I can remember. Then, again, I'll lay down in bed with all the sadness in the world and start making up, again, a way out of it. Then solve it. Then get closer to someone.
I mean, this is worse then Wonderland. It's i.m.m.a.t.u.r.i.t.y. Wake up, Alice. You are not 5. Ken and Barbie are like long gone. And I assure you they ain't happily ever after. Just saying.